1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telephone-controlled home appliance systems and methods for controlling the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to a telephone-controlled home appliance system and a method for controlling the same, wherein a plurality of home appliances each include a telephone control module for receiving ringing signals, are configured to count the number of the received ringing signals and to automatically enter an off-hook state in accordance with the result. Thus, the home appliances can be simultaneously/individually controlled in a home through the use of a remote telephone even though they are commonly connected to the same telephone line.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the present specification, home appliances according to the conventional and present systems will be described to be air conditioners, merely for illustrative and non-limiting purposes.
Recently, home network systems have been proposed in which users outside of homes or buildings can remotely control home appliances inside of the homes or the buildings. In an initial home network system, as shown in FIG. 1, an air conditioner 1 includes a modem 2 connected with an Internet network, and is assigned a fixed Internet protocol (IP), address. A remote user can control the operation of the air conditioner 1 through the use of an Internet medium, such as a personal computer (PC) connectable with the Internet network.
However, in the above-mentioned home network system, there is a concern that a great cost could be required in assigning fixed IP addresses to home appliances and the fixed IP addresses to be assigned to the home appliances could be overissued. Further, for operation of the above-described home network system, it is essential to install an Internet line in the building itself, resulting in a considerable economic cost.
In a region having a previously constructed Internet network, it is possible to use the home network system through the Internet network by establishing additional facilities of the Internet network and incurring a fee for the use thereof. However, in a region or country where access to Internet facilities is poor, it is impossible to use the above-described home network system.
One approach to overcoming the above problem is a home network system which is capable of controlling home appliances using a telephone line, thus not requiring the use of the Internet. In such a home network system, however, all home appliances must be assigned different telephone numbers so that they can be externally identified. For this reason, only a small number of specific home appliances can be used and a great cost is required in installing and maintaining telephone numbers respectively assigned to the specific home appliances.
Provided that a plurality of home appliances can be commonly connected to one telephone number, the wasteful assignment of unnecessary telephone numbers will be avoided. In this case, however, it is difficult to operate the home appliances at the same time due to a signal delay on a telephone line corresponding to the telephone number, etc. That is, if a closest one of the home appliances to the telephone line first receives a ringing signal, it is in turn connected to a remote calling party via the telephone line to receive a control signal transmitted therefrom. However, the other home appliances cannot receive the transmitted control signal. As a result, it is not possible to control the home appliances at the same time, resulting in inconvenience in use of the control system.